Principal Software Engineer (Full-Stack), Digital Factory

Werfen•Bedford, MA

3d•$150,000 - $185,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Werfen's Digital Solutions organization is building a next-generation, event-driven middleware platform that will become the common connectivity and data backbone for our diagnostics product lines (acute care, coagulation, autoimmunity, and future product lines such as transplant). The Principal Software Engineer will provide hands-on technical leadership for the Device Connectivity workstream — architecting and building the systems that connect a wide range of laboratory and point-of-care devices to the platform, and helping define the canonical data model, event backbone, and cloud-native infrastructure the whole platform is built on. This is a high-ownership role for someone who has designed distributed, event-driven systems in production, is comfortable operating close to hardware/device protocols as well as cloud infrastructure, and can lead a small team while remaining hands-on.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree plus a minimum of 10 years related experience or Master's Degree plus 8 year of related experience or waiver based on experience
Experience in Software Medical Devices development that follows ISO 13485, IEC 62304 / 21 CFR Part 820.30 highly desired
Proven experience leading architecture and delivery of event-driven, distributed backend systems in production
Deep, hands-on experience with event-driven architecture and asynchronous messaging (e.g., Kafka, EventBridge, SNS/SQS, MQTT).
Strong grounding in distributed systems fundamentals: replication, partitioning, consistency models, delivery guarantees, and failure handling.
Hands-on AWS serverless experience: Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, EventBridge/Kinesis, SQS/SNS, DynamoDB/Aurora, S3, Cognito or similar.
Experience with IoT or device connectivity — ingesting and normalizing data from distributed device fleets; experience with healthcare/lab device protocols (ASTM, POCT1-A2, HL7) is a strong plus.
Microservices architecture and domain-driven design; comfort defining bounded contexts and canonical data models across previously siloed systems.
Strong backend development skills (e.g., Java/Spring, Node.js, or Python) and experience with both SQL and NoSQL data stores.
Working knowledge of containerization and infrastructure automation (Docker, Kubernetes, IaC).
Ability to write and champion effective unit, integration, and contract tests for distributed systems.
Experience in a regulated environment (healthcare, IVD, or similarly compliance-heavy industry) is a plus, including awareness of audit and traceability requirements.
Strong understanding of agile methodologies and experience working working within cross-functional agile teams.
Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex distributed-systems trade-offs to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
Sound problem-solving skills with the ability to quickly process complex information and present it clearly.
Comfortable driving technical decisions under ambiguity, and documenting the reasoning for future teams.
Passionate about distributed systems and event-driven architecture, and energized by modernizing legacy platforms.
Self-starter who can operate with minimal supervision while keeping stakeholders aligned.
Believes in transparency, direct feedback, and shared technical ownership.
Open to learning new domains — this role spans device protocols, cloud infrastructure, and healthcare data standards.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading or tech-leading a squad or workstream preferred.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership for the Device Connectivity workstream: own architecture, design, and delivery for connecting diagnostic devices to the middleware platform.
Design and implement device connectivity services using industry protocols including ASTM E1381/E1394, POCT1-A2, HL7, and MQTT.
Architect event-driven, distributed backend systems — events as the sole transport between platform and product databases, with no cross-database joins.
Design and build on AWS serverless architecture (e.g., Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge/Kinesis, SQS/SNS), with data infrastructure on AuroraDB and S3.
Own IoT/device-fleet concerns: real-time telemetry ingestion, device state and status modeling, connectivity resilience, and edge-vs-cloud trade-offs.
Contribute to canonical data model design across device, order, result, QC, and reagent/consumable domains, identifying and resolving structural gaps between device specs and the shared model.
Apply distributed systems fundamentals (replication, consistency, delivery guarantees, fault tolerance) to platform decisions such as read routing and data durability.
Lead, mentor, and review the work of other engineers; participate in and help shape hiring for the team.
Partner with architects and stakeholders across the Digital Solutions initiative, the Device organization, and product teams to align on roadmap and platform/application boundaries.
Ensure application performance, uptime, scalability, security, and compliance appropriate to a regulated healthcare/IVD environment.
Use agile engineering practices to deliver incrementally and collaborate closely with cross-functional squad members.